Fluxblog Weekly #202: Black Dresses, Stephen Malkmus, Cass McCombs, Drahla
March 11th, 2019
This Place Is Designed To Kill Us
Black Dresses “Death/Bad Girl”
Black Dresses’ sound is a collision of harsh industrial rock and sassy electroclash, two adjacent genre aesthetics that didn’t crossover nearly as much as they should have back in the day. But here it is, and it sounds incredibly fresh – my first thought upon hearing “Death/Bad Girls” was basically, “why did people ever stop doing this?” The timing feels right, though. The boldness of this music is in stark contrast with a music ecosystem overwhelmingly dominated by low-key sadness, drab aesthetics, and comatose rhythms. This sound is like a splash of color and the slash of a knife, and the vocals nail a perfect balance of aggression, dark humor, and introspection. “Death/Bad Girls” moves through a four distinct phases in four minutes – I’m most fond of the heaviest and most abrasive bits, but the outro section in which they get more philosophical and emotionally vulnerable is where they really pull it all back and show you what they’re really on about.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
March 11th, 2019
So Alien In This Burnt World
Stephen Malkmus “Ocean of Revenge”
One of the problems of selling new albums by long term career artists is that there’s usually no story to tell about it. Music writers are mostly quite lazy, and it’s generally difficult to spin “talented person makes another very good record” into compelling copy. The entire music media system is set up to favor new things, small discographies with a clearly identifiable peak, and on occasion, a comeback story. Being consistently good for a long time is not sexy and sometimes viewed with contempt, even if that is the ideal situation for being a fan of an artist, or, you know, actually BEING an artist. But it’s never really about art. It’s about stories and images, and a consistent story and static image is borrrrrrring.
Matador Records has been successful in crafting a narrative around Groove Denied, Stephen Malkmus’ eighth album since the demise of Pavement. It’s the weirdest and most casual record he’s made, though there’s precedent for both the tossed-off looseness and dependence on somewhat haphazard and inexpert drum programming on various b-sides and outtakes released in both the Pavement and Jicks phases of his career. The story here is that the album was made prior to last year’s Sparkle Hard, but Matador asked Malkmus to shelve it and focus on his more conventional material. The label was successful in marketing Sparkle Hard as a “return to form,” so the path was clear to release the more peculiar album with minimal risk. With this narrative, the oddball style of Groove Denied was now an asset, and people could come to the record prepared for Malkmus to “go electronic.”
OK, so, it’s not THAT electronic. There’s definitely drum machines and a lot of keyboards, and the first side has a few songs that are legitimately new aesthetic territory for Malkmus, though his Malkmus-ness is so strong that it devours any sound it comes in contact with. The most extreme song is “Forget Your Place,” not just because it’s so slow and meditative, but because his voice is altered so much that the Malkmus-ness of it is muted. This is good and interesting stuff, but the real action is on the second side. That’s where he’s not trying on new vibes, but doing his usual thing with a playful “hey, who cares, I’m having fun here” attitude. This is always an aspect of what Malkmus does, but the trend over the course of his Jicks catalog is a move towards increasingly tight and technically accomplished music. He sings better, he plays better, he works with a strong rhythm section. But here’s informal and a little sloppy. He’s doing all the percussion and drum programming himself, and it’s not his strong suit. But it’s very charming, and it suits the wobbly psychedelic vibes he’s going after.
“Ocean of Revenge” is my favorite, and it’s the most tightly composed song on the record. Sue me, I am a long term Jicks fan. This is what I’ve come to love! The presentation is a bit more sloppy, but the songwriting is brilliant in a very specific Malkmus-y way – long winding melodies, casually winding guitar parts, lyrics full of surprising specificity. He’s writing in character here, but the key lines ring out in a way that invite you to ignore the storytelling and focus on the feeling: “I know you thought about me more often than I thought of you / it is true, just admit it!” The song is excellent in its construction but still feels like something he might have written and laid down in a day and forgot about for two years. It’s the kind of thing that reminds you how this all seems to come so easily to him, which is both astonishing and a little annoying. Some people work all their lives to write one song as good as “Ocean of Revenge,” and for Malkmus it’s just another one among the many.
Buy it from Amazon.
March 14th, 2019
Give You A Clue
Cass McCombs “Absentee”
The lyrics of “Absentee” mention gathering firewood, a dead river, and a country road, but he could be singing about anything at all and the song would still sound very, very rural to me. I imagine a cabin in the woods, somewhere in Upstate New York or New England. I’m not even sure why that is – it’s the pace, it’s in the piano, it’s in the soft understated saxophone that fills the air like the scent of burning wood on a crisp autumn breeze. McCombs’ vocal performance here falls in a strange valley between sensitive vulnerability and a stoic aloofness. It’s like he’s attempting to be warm in spite of a tendency to be quite cold.
Buy it from Amazon.
March 15th, 2019
Take A Bite Of Life
Drahla “Stimulus for Living”
Luciel Brown’s vocal cadence reminds me a lot of Kim Gordon, particularly in the way her affect can seem both pleading and sarcastic, just enough to make it unclear how much emotional investment she has in what she’s saying because it’s not exactly zero. Brown mostly conveys a suspicious skepticism on “Stimulus for Living,” a propulsive post-punk song that drives along on a chugging bass riff but is spiked by agitated guitar leads, noisy clangs, and nervous clicky rhythmic digressions. Drahla are using a lot of old punk tricks here but they make it feel fresh and urgent – a lot of that is thoughtfulness and expertise, but it’s mostly evidence of a band operating on very good instincts and a connection to some broader ambient anxiety in the world that feels particular to this moment in time.
Buy it from Bandcamp.